


You Should Have Called

by TheShipSailsItself



Series: Charmed Reboot Whumptober 2019 [2]
Category: Charmed (TV 2018)
Genre: Explosions, F/M, Whumptober 2019, whumptober 2019 Explosion
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-11-27 02:13:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20940599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheShipSailsItself/pseuds/TheShipSailsItself
Summary: Whumptober 2019: Day 2 - Explosion





	1. Chapter 1

Macy always shows up like clockwork. She’s never late and Harry hasn’t had to cancel their lunch once in the past three months, although the latter is probably more a credit to his assistant than himself. Usually, he puts his head down and works until he hears the sound of the key Harry technically wasn’t supposed to copy much less give her unlocking his office door. So when he looks up at the wall clock and sees the time he’s genuinely shocked. He looks down at his watch and then taps his phone to confirm the time and, no, it’s definitely not Thursday and, yes, it’s nearly a full hour since Macy should have been here. He checks his phone again and there isn’t so much as a text from her. 

Harry feels a twinge of alarm low in his gut. He closes his eyes and reaches out, trying to feel for her location through their Whitelighter-Charge bond. He opens his eyes confused. And maybe, just maybe, there’s the smallest twinge of hurt somewhere in his chest. She’s at her lab and as far as he can tell without overstepping his bounds she appears not to be in distress. He feels her steady, rock-solid calm just as surely as he can feel his own growing annoyance.

_Why would she not just tell me she wasn’t coming for lunch?_ He wonders just as his stomach rumbles in churlish solidarity.

Harry tries to get back to his paperwork. He lasts but five minutes before throwing down his pen. He scrubs at his temples and admits to himself that he’s not going to be getting anymore work done. He packs only what he absolutely needs to finish before tomorrow in his briefcase before neatly stacking everything else to be dealt with later. 

Harry briefly considers orbing directly home but honestly, that would just be childish on his part. And all because of one missed lunch? He shakes his head and scolds himself for the sudden burst of peevishness. Hardly the behavior of a fully grown man. Whatever the reason for her absence, Macy deserves far better than his petulance. 

So yes, he’ll go by her lab and let her know he’s heading home. And he’ll tell her that the moment she calls him he will come straight back to pick her up. He laughs quietly to himself already hearing her insistence that she can make her own way home. He’ll insist right back that he intends to see her home even if he has to orb into the janitorial closet next to her work station to do it. Feeling better about his ‘plan’ Harry quickly makes his way out of his building and into the crisp October air.


	2. Chapter 2

The Sciences Building isn’t all that far from the Hall of Humanities that houses his department. So within mere minutes Harry finds himself standing on the corner of one of the smallish swathes of manicured greenery in front of Macy’s building. 

From the walkway he can look up directly at the windows of her lab. At the end of most days this is where he stands waiting to catch a glimpse of his charge in her ‘natural environment’. His favorite moments, however, are when he looks up to see her already smiling down at him. She’ll wave and his phone will alert him of a text, usually one saying she’ll be right down or maybe that she needs a few more minutes. Regardless of what her texts say the simple combination of her smile and the buzz of his phone in the pocket resting just below his heart never fails to send a rush of warmth through him.

Harry looks up and is surprised to see her distinctive form walking past the large glass windows a floor below her lab. He sees her bending down to speak to a student seated at a work bench before disappearing back further into the lab. 

A sudden rush of shame washes over him as he all at once recalls the late evening conversation they had several days ago. Macy had finished getting ready for but was still reluctant to go to bed. More so than usual, Harry had noted. So he had offered to make a pot of tea and sit with her for bit. He can't help but smile to himself as he recalls the soft halo her hair gathered loosely atop her head had formed. And the way the wide neck of her well-worn jumper had slid when she reached out to accept her cup. She had been, as she always was, a vision. In the coolness of that late evening hour he had felt very much like a cat basking in the afternoon sun.

Harry's smile falls away as other memories of that night resurface and he recalls with painful clarity how she _had_ told him she wouldn’t be able to make it to lunch due to a fellow instructor starting their paternity leave. The sudden addition to her teaching load was what had made her too anxious to sleep in the first place.

_Harry, you petulant prick._ Had he been meant to bring _her_ lunch? Oh damn him, he had. And here he was stomping about campus like a child in a pout instead.

He’s just about to turn and make his way to nearest dining hall when he feels a spike of alarm that he knows with absolute certainty does not belong to him. Under his feet he feels the ground shudder ever so slightly. Through their connection he feels Macy’s alarm ratchets up and Harry looks back up to the window where he last saw Macy. His phone is already in hand and he sends a text via the group text to let her sisters know there may be something afoot.

**Harry: _I’m outside your building. Felt a tremor. Are you alright?_**

But at the moment he hits ‘send’ a sharp flash of light flickers in the window at the far end of the lab. Harry sees a student jump back from his bench, knocking over his stool and sending glass wear to the floor. Harry’s heart gives a kick when he spies Macy walking quickly towards the source of the light. She’s afraid, genuinely afraid. She passes the student, pulling him roughly behind her as she does so. Harry’s heart stops altogether when he loses sight of Macy, another incandescent flash so brilliant it blots out every window facing the quad engulfing the lab. Her fear blots out all other thoughts from Harry’s mind. Her name is trapped in his chest as his lungs seize at the horrifying sight. _Macy. Please, no. MACY. _The light vanishes just as quickly as it appeared and is followed by a subtle boom sounding in the distance. Harry barely has a chance to glance around for a place to orb when the entire quad is struck by a single, violent shake throwing dozens of people, Harry included, to the ground.


	3. Chapter 3

Harry scrambles on hands and knees trying to locate his fallen phone. He pats blindly at the prickly grass unwilling to tear his gaze away from the last place he saw his charge for even a moment. He blinks his eyes furiously trying to banish the white spots crowding his vision. When the glare clears Harry scans the windows for any sign of Macy. 

_Macy, please, where are you?_

Every window is obscured by the faint haze of a thin smoke. Even from where he stands Harry can see the stillness of the haze. It offers no signs of movement amongst the now empty workbenches. His fingers encounter the smooth, cool metal of his phone and Harry must force himself to look down. He does so but only as long as it takes to see that his text remains unanswered, at least not from Macy herself. When he looks back up the haze has thickened to a point where the entire lab is obscured from view. 

Harry rises to his feet, his own dread still filling his chest and closing around his throat. Is there a fire? Could there be a demon? He tries to listen for Macy’s voice inside his head but the field around him is filling with the rising cacophony of car alarms, voices terrified students and sirens. 

Far beyond caring how he might appear to others, Harry sinks back to his knees and claps his hands over his ears. The hard points of his palms grind his ears against his skull and his nails dig deep into his scalp. He tries and tries to listen for Macy’s summons over the hammering of his heart.

He hears nothing. Not his name, not the ever present hum of her power, not even the fear of just a few moments ago. Nothing but a dreadful and empty silence.

And in that silence the cruel voices of Harry’s own fears whisper,_ what if she can’t call out? What if it’s too late? What if… _

Unbidden his imagination conjures an image of Macy battered and bloodied beneath the crush of concrete and steel. 

_What if she’s gone?_

That last thought nearly sends Harry into a state of outright panic and a ringing sets up between his ears. She is not gone. He would feel it. He would **_know_**. 

Desperation claws at Harry and he throws everything in him out along his connection to Macy. There is nothing tentative about it, no friendly or professional reserve as there would be with Maggie or Melanie. Instead, Harry opens himself up completely, boundaries and traditions be damned. He scours their connection find even the smallest hint of thought or emotion that might lead him to his charge. He pours every ounce of his fears and hopes and love for her into their bond, begging her to answer him, begging her to call him to her side.

_Summon me. Macy, please. I need to know where you are. Damn it, Macy, call for me._

Harry's head swivels a bit wildly as he scans the surrounding area looking for somewhere he can go to orb. If Macy <strike>cannot</strike> will not summon him Harry will simply have to go in and find his way to her. But the greens are teeming with students and staff and now police and emergency services. And in this wide open field Harry has never felt more trapped.

**Author's Note:**

> It started out as one of the first of the Whumptober prompts I tried to work on and then it... _exploded_ on me. So I wasn't able to put it out on the actual day. And even now I don't know when I'll be finishing it. So here's the start. Enjoy.


End file.
